By the time you read this the world will have changed

Entries tagged with canada

I've been in a funk for a couple of weeks. I'm used to this happening in the winter, and letting it pass, but very much not used to it happening in early summer. I'd blame it on my impending birthday but it's been going on too long for me to blame that, and my birthday is only minimally bothersome this year.

Someone wished me a Happy Mother's Day recently, when I was in the grocery store, and it crushed me. I could blame that for my funk, but I think it started before then.

We visited Sceince North the other day, we've played a great deal of Euchre, and relaxed a lot. Tomorrow is shopping in the AM, then a quick lunch, then I'll meet his Mom and sister for our annual movie outing (we pick a chick flick and go see it together, just the three of us, though if his other sister were around we'd invite her to join us. It's kind of become tradition.) Then, we'll come home, hang out here, have supper with the parents, and zedrikcayne and I will head over to his sister's place for more cards (and if they're up, visiting with the niece and nephew.)

I'm feeling less crazy here than last year, probably just a combination of being more used to my in laws, and knowing what to expect. That, plus having internet access, I think has made things a bit easier. I am looking forward to sleeping in my own bed again though.

I'm peeved at the pet sitting company we hired though. We met with a sitter, and as I understood things, that one sitter was the one responsible for caring for our animals while we were gone. Today, while eating lunch, Cayne and I got a phone call from a different sitter, who explained that the first sitter had some "family problems" and wasn't working for the company anymore and that new sitter was taking care of our cats/house. Fine...things happen, people quit/are fired. And while I'm not thrilled about a relative stranger in my house in the first place, I'm less thrilled about a total stranger (even a bonded and insured one) being in my home. Especially when my introduction to this person is a phone call askig how to administer medication to my cat.

Other than that, and more serious than previous mumblings about moving to Canada for a while, that's all from here. Time to get under the covers and out of the cold.

We're currently in Sudbury (and amazingly enough, my father in law allowed zedrikcayne to install wireless, under the guise of not being able to connect to his work e-mail without the firewall. So, I'm not as cut off from the world as I usually am being up here.

It's rather green and unseasonably warm...there were some snow flurries, but nothing on the ground, and daytime temperatures have generally been above freezing. Temperatures are supposed to drop later this week though, to about -11 c/12 f. We're here in Sudbury until January first, then we'll go to Hamilton, where we'll stay overnight, go to Niagra falls on 1/2 and drive up to Toronto that day, then in Toronto on 1/3. We leave in the evening on the third. Our plans on the third include a visit to the CN tower and a trip to Lee Valley Hardware (since there isn't one in Sudbury) if anyone want to join us. We're returning our rental car at around 5 or so, and heading to the airport.

For the rest of the time in Sudbury, to keep myself from going stir crazy, I'm going to go to the movies tomorrow, with my sister in law and mother in law, we'll check out the boxing week sales at some point, and probably go to Science North with our nephew. Boxing week purchases will include our holiday cards for next year, and possibly a new camera, since ours is dying. (The LCD screen has gone in it, and it's probably going to cost more to fix it than to replace it.)

That's the story from here, the room with the thumping headboard. (Everytime you move in this bed, the headboard hits the wall. And it's not attatched to the bed either.) I think I'll have a cookie and go to bed.

I hope you're all enjoying a nice holiday season, whatever you're honoring at this time of year.

There are a tonne of reminder posts about voting on my f'list these days. I've read them all. I think also_huey's post was particularly interesting. Huey (who is fabulous, by the way) also pointed me at this.

I'll vote. Probably late in the morning, but we'll see. I spent quite a bit of time checking out and deciding on the ballot amendments, especially on Vote Smart, Florida's website.

In other, less exciting news about life, we went to the local Ren Faire over the weekend and were very disappointed. We'll probably check out some of the other ones in the next few months. We'll skip Sarasota, because it's this weekend and next weekend...this is our only free weekend until December, and the following weekend is Pirate Festival. But, we'll check out Gainsville and probably Tampa. We're both looking forward to the Pirate Fair...a little bit of a change from Ren Faires.

We're going to be on Long Island (at Mom and Dad's) for Thanksgiving-we arrive Tuesday, and come back Monday. We haven't decided on any visitation plans yet, but we might try and do a whirlwind Jersey Tour on Saturday or Sunday if anyone wants to see us.

I need to shop for some clothes, and I need new shoes for Canada-my sister in law had serious admonishments over my choice of Doc Maartens in the snow last year. She complains they have no traction. I trust her, after the slipping and sliding I did, and am considering a different pair of shoes. I probably need new jeans too-it's hard to say when I don't wear them very often.

I think I cast on the same knitting project about fifteen times, and the casting on is fine, but I'm going nuts trying to count stitches and I can't find any stitch markers. I have some yarn I bought over the weekend that turns out to be too lightweight for the project I'd planned it for, so I'll exchange the three skeins I haven't wound for something bulkier, and pick up some more stitch markers. I'll keep the stuff I wound and toss it into the scrap yarn project-knitted patches done in a basketweave and a cable pattern (note to self, buy cable needle as well) and probably crocheted granny squares. Not necessarily turned into the same afghan, but we'll see, as I complete things.

I am a little bit looking forward to cool weather that we'll get in New York and in Canada. I enjoy the little bits of it that we get when we visit. I'm looking forward to more house -organizing, like acquiring bookshelves, and proper storage for craft things. And other stuff.

I realize we've got a while before we book tickets, but with the cost of moving hanging over us, and knowing that September means three paychecks, I'm trying to pre-plan our two known winter trips, to my Mom and Dad for Thanksgiving in November (and since Orlando to New York is a popular flight, I'm not too concerned about that...I can comparison shop for tickets on airlines we like) and to Canada in December. Last year, we flew all the way through-Air Canada from O-town to Toronto, and then Air Canada Jazz from Toronto to Sudbury. Thing is...the Toronto-Sudbury flight cost as much as the Orlando-Toronto tickets. We were thinking that instead of flying striaght through, it might be less expensive for us to rent a car in Toronto and drive up. (The cheapest way to do it would be to fly into Buffalo, but that would add two to three hours onto the drive, and in potentially bad weather, at a holiday, and dealing with a border crossing, I'm not sure that's the best plan, so we've sort of decided that in the time/money equation, the couple of hours we save crossing the border is better for us than the fiscal difference.)

Anyway, onto the question. I've rented cars before, but only in the US, and it's always been when someone else is paying for it, or at the last second with Enterprise, who had a deal with the place I used to get my car repaired in Virginia. I think I know what the requirements are to rent a car in Canada, but I'm not sure what travel sites people like to find the best rental car deals.

Favorite sites for rental car deals when you travel?

(If you're in the Toronto-ish area, we're planning at the moment to spend a night on either end of our trip in Toronto, and might be up for socializing, though we might plan an extra day or two, since I've never seen Niagra Falls and would really like to. And while it might make more sense to do it in the warmer weather, I think our plan is to go via Ottawa in the summer, and see friends there. The drive from Toronto to Sudbury is apparently a better choice in the winter than Ottawa.)

Since Cayne is a Canadian citizen, in the US on a visa, he needs to carry his passport with him. His passport expires in a couple of weeks, his visa is good until next year. This means, he needs to "renew" his passport. (Passport Canada doesn't actually renew passports...they re-issue them every five years.)

He was in Ottawa last weekend, and tried to renew his passport, but they wanted to keep his passport. Well, he can't come back into the US without his passport. He can't work without his passport. USCIS has actually shown up at his work place and asked for his papers.

So this morning, one of my tasks has been to spend much time on the phone with the Canadian consulate in New York City, trying to manuver through their menus and talk to a real person. I finally declared him a Canadian in Distress, and used that number, to at least get to a live person.

Cayne just called me. He's incredibly drunk, and sounds wonderfully happy. And he keeps calling to tell me he loves me and that he wishes I were there with him, and how we're going to have to go to Ottawa together.

People keep telling him he's hot, too.

I'm sitting here, filled with happiness for him. Even if I miss him not being around.

No wonder I feel like garbage; I've apparently been running a fever. I had what felt like a cold in Canada, and Saturday night at a party drank too much wine (though I followed the five or so glasses of wine with six glasses of water) and woke up feeling like I was hungover. I was miserable on the car ride home, icky yesterday and finally, when I went to reset the alarm for zedrikcayne I took my temperature. No wonder I'm achy everywhere.

This post was mostly to let you know I'm back from Canada and will actually post about the trip at some point when I can stay awake for more than two hours at a time.

We're getting ready to head off to Canada for Christmas etc, tomorrow evening. I'm hoping to get a chance to catch up with my sister and her boyfriend in Syracuse, where we'll stay tomorrow night. We do have a hotel reservation in Rochester, but I don't think we'll have the energy or desire to go all the way to there. I'll try not to go stir crazy in the car. We've got CDs, and XM Satellite radio, and we're very good at car games like "I'm going on a picnic". And there's always Mad Libs.

Today was Cayne's company holiday party. He asked if I wanted to go along-they were going bowling, and I said "Yes" though I did ask if I'd be the only wife/girlfriend/significant other there. He said no, and it turned out that I was indeed the only one there. Didn't matter, I had fun nonetheless and it was nice of the bosses to include me. (When Cayne asked if it was okay to bring me along he was told "Sure, of course. We'll get her drunk!") I didn't get drunk, I bowled okay-I do enjoy it. It's kind of fun, even if I'm not a very good bowler at all.

Laundry done, tomorrow includes a chiropractor appointment, dropping off one more holiday gift, packing and waiting. Litter boxes, laundry and the fridge were all taken care of tonight.

I said to Cayne the other day, that while I don't have the kind of margarita drinking, shoe shopping girlfriends I had in Virginia, I do have a very wonderful, but different kind of family.